In the ancient times there were two instruments much alike, the _psaltery_ and the _dulcimer_, both with a triangular or rectangular sounding box across which are stretched strings of wire or gut fastened to tuning pins. The difference between these two “relatives” is that the _psaltery_ is plucked with fingers or a plectrum, and the _dulcimer_ is struck with hammers. So the _psaltery_ is the grandfather of the virginal, spinet, clavecin, and harpsichord, while the _dulcimer_ is the remote ancestor of the pianoforte. The first record we find of a _dulcimer_ is a stone picture near Nineveh, of an Assyrian king in 667 B.C., celebrating a triumphal procession. This _dulcimer_, suspended from the neck of the player, is being struck with a stick in his right hand, while his left palm on the string checks the tone. Here we have the first stringed instrument which was hammered and muffled, two important elements in the piano. In Persia the _dulcimer_ was called the _santir_ and is still used under different names in the Orient and other places. In Greece and other countries it was called the _psalterion_, and in Italy, the _dolcimelo_. Later, the Germans had a sort of _dulcimer_ called the _Hackbrett_, probably because it was “hacked” as the butcher hacks meat! We see the _dulcimer_ in many shapes according to the fancy of the people who use it. The word comes from _dulce_—the Latin for “sweet” and _melos_—the Greek for “melody.” As people grew wiser and more musical, they padded their hammers or mallets; this gave the idea for the padded hammer of the piano for checking the tone as our Ninevehan did with his left palm. Should you ever listen to a gypsy band, you will hear the _dulcimer_ or _cembalo_. THE KEYBOARD The third element in the making of the piano is the keyboard. It is evident that the piano keyboard and the organ keyboard are practically the same. The water organs of the Greeks and Romans had keyboards, but as the Christian Church forbade the use of organs as sacrilegious, keyboards were lost for almost a thousand years. The keyboard seems to have developed from the Greek _monochord_ used in the Middle Ages to give the pitch in convent singing. It was tuned with a movable bridge or fret pushed back and forth under the strings and fingers. First it was stretched with weights hung at one end. It was a simple matter to add strings to produce more tones, later tuning pins were added and finally a keyboard. This was the whole principle of the _clavichord_. (We might say that the _monochord_ and _dulcimer_ are the Adam and Eve of the pianoforte family.) THE CLAVICHORD